Experience & Expertise
Experience (That Was a Lifetime in the Making)
Experience is a critical component of any company’s success–not just quantity, but also the quality and source of a firm’s experience. Our team takes a “hands-on” approach to each project, ensuring that each project receives the individualized attention it deserves. Nathan and our staff staff have well over a century’s worth of combined experience in a wide range of golf facilities and land planning projects from small renovation projects to large upscale residential developments centered around championship caliber golf courses as well as government-funded land planning projects. In addition to being a member of the American Society of Golf Course Architects (ASGCA) and former member of the American Planning Association, Nathan is also a former associate member of the American Society of Landscape Architects and a published author. It easy to see why he is sought out for his creativity, communication skills and ability to provide unique solutions to client problems through a combination of critical thinking and an “outside the box” approach to each project.
Those who have known Nathan since his younger days credit this ability to a childhood full of creative opportunity. Although no one in his family played golf, he picked up the game at age 10, taught himself how to play by watching and emulating Jack Nicklaus from television and reading Nicklaus’s “Golf My Way” books. By age 11, he designed his first “golf course” — utilizing three acres of his parents’ land at their Indiana home to lay out a working three-hole course (complete with contour mowed fairways and sand bunkers). He even went so far as to draw up construction drawings to be utilized by his friends whom he recruited to help build the course. He soon discovered that his love for playing the game was eclipsed only by his zeal for learning more about the history of the game and its roots in early courses and their design styles. By his freshman year in high school, he has honed his game well enough to be selected as a member of the varsity golf team. By his senior year, he had decided his goal was to become a golf course architect after college and he soon found himself enrolled in Mississippi State University’s PGA Golf Management (PGM) program — his key to opening doors in a growing golf industry.
Nathan would go on to graduate from Mississippi State Summa Cum Laude with a 3.89 cumulative GPA and a Bachelors Degree in Marketing as well as a degree from the PGM program. Upon graduation, Nathan took the position as Senior Design Associate at an upstart golf course design firm in Jackson, Mississippi.
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“I will go anywhere a plane, truck, or pack mule will get me if there’s a good client and a piece of property we can turn into something.”
While with that firm for 8 years, he gained valuable insight into the critical details of renovation projects and new course design. He became a quick study in master planning and soon was producing visually stunning full color-rendered plans to help drive the marketing efforts and long-term planning of the firm’s clients. He was fortunate to not only be a member of the project team for a number of high profile and successful projects, but also to play an active and leading role in the planning, design, implementation, and completion of those projects.
While working on these projects, Nathan discovered that he also possessed a keen ability for land planning and residential development planning–designing the layout for streets, home sites, and other features upon which the project engineers would base their plans. The son of a long-time and well-respected general contractor in Louisville, Kentucky (Bill Crace), Nathan understands construction from both sides of the table and uses that knowledge to keep projects flowing smoothly without costly delays.
In 2002, Nathan founded Watermark Golf/Nathan Crace Design — geared toward providing a full range of golf course architectural and planning services to clients throughout the United States and beyond. The firm’s offices are strategically located in South Mississippi, less than 90 miles north of the Gulf Coast. In addition to being nearly the center point of an area encompassing Houston, Dallas, Little Rock, Memphis, Shreveport, Nashville, Baton Rouge, New Orleans, Mobile and Birmingham, it is only a short drive from the International Airport in Jackson — and consequently the rest of the globe. As Nathan likes to say, “I will go anywhere a plane, truck, or pack mule will get me if there’s a good client and a piece of property we can turn into something.”
Combined with the experience and expertise of the firm’s support staff, Nathan possesses the experience, knowledge, technical thinking, artistic ability, and “people skills” required to set Watermark Golf apart from the competition in today’s competitive marketplace for golf course architecture and land planning.
Let’s Build Something!
Reach out to learn how our team can assist you with creative problem solving, maximizing investment, and helping you turn your dream into a reality!
p: (601) 849-0461
e: mail@watermarkgolf.com
Post Office Box 1250
Magee, MS | 39111 | USA
100 Lakeview Drive, Suite 210
Magee, MS | 39111 | USA